Hearts of Stone
by Christina K
Summary: Clint was thinking that they'd have to wing it and then put the kid in therapy when he was eighteen or so, like every other preschooler out there who'd just had their world undone. (Or, the Bartons, after the last Snap.) [Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame; not-a-fix-it, sadly.]


So, good news: Laura was dealing. She was sad about Nat, really sad. But she had enough to do, between getting the farm running again, and the kids, and Clint's multi-layered PTSD, that it didn't get more traumatic for her than missing one of her oldest friends. Which was terrible but manageable, as far as Clint could tell. She had a plan, she had ways to cope.

Everyone else? Not so much.

Nate was confused and sad. He wasn't clear on what had happened, or been undone, or why Auntie Nat wasn't there anymore, and wasn't going to be there again. He'd asked a couple times why they couldn't just 'undo' it, like everything else? Clint was thinking that they'd have to wing it and then put the kid in therapy when he was eighteen or so, like every other preschooler out there who'd just had their world undone. Or re-done. Jesus.

Lila was grieving, and feeling guilty and overwhelmed, and dealing with Nat's disappearance, as well as what felt like (to her) the early-aging of some of her friends. Who were trying to cope with Lila being back but five years younger than them. She wasn't quite at Nate's level of "why can't we get a do-over?", but she was swinging wildly between relief her dad was here and not still under house arrest- and legit deep-set sorrow (for Nat, for the world, it was a lot for someone her age to get her head around). Mostly she was hiding out and shooting arrows into inappropriate things. Hopefully that would do something for her eventually.

Cooper was pissed. About everything. About nothing. Clint got that. He did. He just was having a hard time responding to it in any kind of useful way.

Because when he wasn't so overwhelmingly fucking relieved, rejoicing and grateful to have his family back, to have the rest of the world back, he was missing Natasha like several shooting fingers. Off-balance. Non-functional, on a basic level. He'd get these wild moments of checking that everyone was still there, still back, still whole, and the panic would keep going for longer than it should before it would sink in, again, that Nat wasn't _supposed_ to be there. Not any more.

Fuck.

* * *

Cooper was outside by the barn, cussing out the tractor, which hadn't benefited from five years in storage. Laura had ordered him out of the house when he'd snapped at Lila for what he called _melodrama_ and she called _justified community mourning_. Clint gave him 10 to get it mostly out of his system, then wandered down to help.

"Is it the starter?"

"No." Cooper was silent for a few moments, then said, "It might be the battery. You didn't think to come back and start it up while we were gone?"

Clint raised an eyebrow at that tone, and Cooper flushed. "Sorry. I meant..."

"I was doing... other stuff." _Way to soft-pedal a vigilante killing spree, Barton._ Clint rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow. "Didn't think-" He cut himself off at the sad look on Cooper's face. Sad for his father, not himself. "Anyway. Might be the carburetor. Let's check."

"Okay." Cooper lifted off the top and Clint pulled out the filter, and yeah, they were going to have to flush the system, it looked like. Cooper's face was a mix of embarrassment and stubbornness, harder to deal with. "Sorry."

"S'okay. I get it." He gave Coop a sideways look. "Your sister doesn't, though."

Cooper rolled his eyes, then blew out a rough breath. "I just- Why does she want to go to that candlelight vigil? Nobody's dead, now." He grimaced, jaw clenching. "Nobody anyone in town would understand about, anyway."

"You know that's not true." Clint kept his voice neutral as he worked to unscrew the inlet hose. "A lot of people died because of the Snap. A lot of people died in the last five years." He'd killed some of them. It felt like that was going to catch up to him without any warning, somewhere down the line.

As long as it didn't hurt his family, he'd own it. But so far it looked like Nat had taken care of that for him too. _Damnit._

"But that isn't gonna help!" Cooper spit out. "Not getting everyone in town together to hug and cry and _share_ about it." He dropped part of the carburetor shaft and bent down to scrabble for it in the dust. "Shit."

"You don't have to go. Just don't give Lila crap about it. If it works for her..." Clint grimaced, and re-connected part of the filter. "Hell, I think she's just hoping it'll be something that works for her."

He looked down to see Coop still crouched, hiding his face, gripping the side of one tire, fingers trembling, and froze, helpless, as his son tried to swallow back tears. Damnit. _Damnit._ He walked around the tractor, and knelt down next to Cooper, one arm going over his shoulder.

"I'm so mad. And I should be happy. The world, the universe is back to normal." Cooper dragged the back of his wrist across his eyes, his voice thick. "I'm not mad at anybody, it isn't that kind of mad..."

"Sure you are. I am." Clint pressed his temple against Cooper's, holding him tighter. "I'm mad at Thanos, even though that fucker's dead. I'm mad at the assholes who put me under house arrest, so I wasn't in Wakanda when it all went down." He closed his eyes. "I'm mad at myself, for... everything that's wrong. That you gotta go through this."

Cooper gave a choked laugh-snort. "Right. I mean, you helped save the world, you should've done more. What kind of father are you?"

It was a joke, but it wasn't. Clint winced, and let out a slow breath. It stung, right under his rib-cage. "Yeeeah." He swallowed hard. "I'm mad at Nat."

Because goddamnit Natasha, goddamnit goddamnit, fuck. You spend over fifteen years with someone at your back, in your head, part of your home, the person you turn to when you and everything around you are going batshit-insane, and then that person disappears and... damnit, work-spouse, sister, brain-twin, crazier half. There were no words for what she was to him. That was the problem. She took all the best words with her.

"Me too," Cooper said hoarsely. "And I'm glad it's not you and I'm a terrible person and I _miss_ her already and-"

Clint sat down and pulled Cooper in, and there wasn't anything else to say. Not really.

_Look what you did, Tasha. You made Cooper cry._ She brought back his son, and everyone else, and let Clint be there for it. Let him be a father again. And took herself out of the picture at the same time.

How the hell did you say thank you for that?

* * *

"We could put up a gravestone," Laura said, voice quiet later as he washed the dishes. She dried off the saucepan, putting it in the cupboard. "Here, I mean. Maybe the Avengers will put up a memorial somewhere else, but... Something for us, the family."

Clint's hands slowed for a moment, then he shrugged. "Maybe."

"You don't want one?" Laura was studying him, and he could see the grief around her eyes. God, he didn't deserve her. He never had, but it was so, so clear after five years without her.

"I dunno." Clint paused to rinse out a pan, trying to get his thoughts in order. "I can't think what to put on it. I mean, she didn't even know her real birth-date, for crying out loud."

"Just her name, maybe? It doesn't have to be complicated."

"Yeah, but..." Clint stopped, and rubbed at his eyes. Laura's hand was sliding up and down his bicep to comfort him, until he got his breathing under control. "Natalia Alianovna Romanova? Romanoff? Natasha? I can't..." And the middle name might be wrong now, if that freak on Vormir had it right. Natasha Ivanova...? Crap.

"There's no rush." Laura arched up on her toes and kissed the side of his face, leaning into him as he shakily stood there, dishwater getting cold. "It's a thing to think about. I thought-" Her voice got softer. "The kids - they should have somewhere to go, and remember her."

And her too. Tasha was her friend too.

"Lemme think about it." Clint cleared his throat. "It's not a bad idea. I just gotta think."

Laura nodded, and he turned to kiss her forehead, then her lips, thinking of all those memorial markers, and how he was going to destroy the one with Laura's name on it. The kid's names. Knock them all down.

* * *

Lila had gone with Clint to the memorial markers just outside of town, and held his jacket while he went to work with the pick-axe. She'd insisted on carving her own name off, feet planted firm as she swung it to take out the first L. Clint knew it was a stupidly superstitious relief that he felt to see her name gone, and to have Lila right there, jaw set, eyes narrowed, as the stone chipped away. But he still felt something lighten in him, something saying _not yet, not yet, I'm not gonna outlive my daughter, not yet._

When they were done, she shouldered the axe, bumping her elbow against his as they walked back to the house. He bumped hers back. They were companionably quiet as they hit the boundary of the farm.

"Do you think..." Her voice broke the silence, then trailed off. Clint sent her an inquiring look. "Do you think Aunt Nat knows? How it all turned out?"

"Aunt Nat knew everything," Clint said. "What do you think?"

Lila considered, squinting into the sun. "I don't know if I think all dead people know stuff. Or if they bother thinking about it. But yeah." Her mouth firmed, and she nodded, blazing certainty. "I can't imagine it any other way."

Clint had a tumble of thoughts in his head at that (_when did you get so old, Lila; Tasha, did you teach her that trick, of looking that confident?_) but what came out was, "Neither could she, I guess."

* * *

It came up from Nate's chatter, which made the idea Clint finally had for Nat's memorial something he could follow through on, instead of moping about it forever.

"This is my favorite tree," he informed Clint, hanging upside-down above his head. Sunlight flickered across his face as green leaves rustled in the wind. The five-year-old slid one knee off the branch, so he was only hanging by one leg. "My ab-so-lute favorite."

"Careful, buddy."

"I know. Don't do this without a grown-up." Nate nodded energetically. "Aunt Nat said. Always have back-up when you're being dangerous!" He tilted his head back, hair flopping in the breeze, and Clint caught his breath, slowly let it out, arms at the ready in case Nate fell. "This was her favorite tree too."

"It was?" Clint had to smile. Maybe the worries he'd had, about Nate forgetting her, wouldn't happen. Maybe the memories would fade, but she'd always be there, somewhere, in his brain, as some cool magic friend who knew everything.

"Yup. We liked lotsa the same things." Nate reached up and grabbed the branch with his hands, unbending to hang by his fingers. "I miss her." He dropped into Clint's arms with only a second's warning, a thud of weight against his chest.

Squeezing Nate extra-tight, he whispered, "I get that."

* * *

"You don't think it's dumb?" Clint rubbed the back of his head, watching Laura's face while she read the web-page he'd pulled up.

"I think it's great." Laura traced the image of the tree on the laptop screen, then smiled at him. "And I think I married a poet, with all this symbolism. Unplumbed depths, Barton."

"Pfft. Like that's likely." Clint dropped his arm, then folded them across his chest. "Banner said he'd help. I know we can do it ourselves, but. He'll be able to get grafts we can't, make sure they take. Check on the progress." And Bruce could use the project, too. Maybe that new, older Steve would want to help. "I was thinking, maybe next to Nate's climbing tree. So we can see it from the kitchen."

Laura wrapped her arms around him, and her voice was watery. "Perfect."

Tasha's tree had four grafts on it when they planted it. Apricot base, then almonds, peaches, plums, nectarines. Clint, Laura, Cooper, Lila, Nate. They were going to add more to it, as it got bigger. More varieties, cherries, maybe. They'd bloom at different times through the spring and summer, and Bruce had said that they might get some spontaneous hybrids in the future. Beautiful, unexpected, unique.

The tree was going to outlive him too.

Clint carefully hung a silver arrow necklace from the top branch, then tapped it to send it spinning in the sunlight.

* * *

**Notes:**

Five years since my last couple fanfics, and now, with this movie, I'm fanfic-burbling. Eventually, I'll be over the events of Endgame. I guess. Or maybe I'll move into writing AUs.

I came up with the idea of the tree for Natasha, but Perri suggested the lovely hybrid that I settled on here. To find it, look up "40 Fruits from One Tree."

Also, this type of grafting works because each of those grafts is of a tree with a pit in the center of the fruit - a heart of 'stone.'

Thanks to Perri (neonhummingbird) and Airawyn, again, for beta'ing and suggestions.


End file.
